Excerpt from The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine, Vol. 11 of 36 Mr. Fletcher has just kindly sent me for examination the specimens of a Psychid that are recorded by Mr. Barrett in Ent. Mo. Mag., December, 1895, vol. xxxi, p. 275, as Fumea betulina. These examples are three males, one female, two blown larvae and cases, one other case with empty female pupa skin, and a male pupa skin, supplying very complete materials for their determination. They prove to be Bacotia sepium, Spr. (= tabulella, Bruand). In pointing out that they are not betulina, it seems desirable that I should go into some detail as to the points of distinction between betulina and sepium, and mention those characters that may be observed in these specimens as they stand, that prove them to be sepium and not betulina, as my mere ipse dixit would be of little weight against the authority of Mr. Barrett, whose work in this group is so distinct an element, leading up to our recent more definite knowledge of the rarer and more obscure British Psychidae. The Case. - These cases are of peculiar form, short and wide, even a shade protuberant beyond the middle, and ending in a blunt rounded extremity, without any previous tapering, carried nearly vertically to the surface, absolutely so when fixed for pupation, as the specimen affixed to its bit of bark shows, in the instance of the empty female case. The case of betulina tapers definitely towards the free end, and is more slender and spindle-shaped, though often at some angle to the surface, it is never carried or fixed vertically to that surface, except, as also occurs in nitidella, such a position enables it to hang vertically downwards. The clothing of the case is distinctive. Nitidella clothes the case with grass straws, making the case look like a bundle of yellow sticks; sepium attaches various pieces of blue-grey lichen, well illustrated in two of these New Forest cases, the third has a bit of bark attached; betulina never, well, hardly ever, uses either grass or lichen to clothe its case, but bits of bark, rotten wood, brown dead leaves, and so on, often looking very dirty and smoky from the materials used; brighter and pleasanter to appearance when leaf material predominates. The Larva. - The larva of sepium has a black head and thoracic plates, relieved on the thorax by only a median whitish line; betulina has brownish subdorsal marking, approaching those of nitidella larva. In sepium the third thoracic plate is represented by only a small scrap on either side, in betulina it is complete across the dorsum, as in nitidella. The colour of the abdominal segments in sepium is sepia; in betulina it is a ruddy or pinkish-brown. Their structure is also very different, the abdominal segments in betulina are divided dorsally into two distinct ridges, or subsegments carrying respectively the anterior and posterior trapezoidal (I and II) tubercles. In sepium there is no such definite division, and the tubercles are in transverse alignment (approximately) with the anterior tubercle (I) external. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."